When the history of Africa Night Tilburg is written, the Augusts 2011 edition will go down as one of the most bizarre editions ever. First was the expectation that is was going to be a very quiet evening because this edition fell in the month of Ramadan. A significant number of our clients are Muslims, so we knew most of them and their spouses will not be show up. And this was generally the case. But we were wrong about this Africa Night being not busy. At the end of the evening, there was little difference in terms of numbers compared with the busiest of months. In fact, the owner of the hall (who is responsible for the drinks and all) told us it was his best night ever in terms of sales!
Another bizarre thing was the fact that we almost had to pray before the men could arrive. Right up to the half of the evening, the women were outnumbering the men by about 5 to 1. In fact lot’s of ladies came to mischievously us to ask us to open the sealed cans where we kept the men! A big “disaster” was averted when the men started trooping in from around 00.30 hours. In the end though, there were still more women than men during this edition.
Perhaps the most confusing for our August guests was the presence of a guest DJ. DJ Brizzle is a young guy from Thailand who grew up in Ghana and is well into the Ghana music scene. His cameo appearance behind the DJ table was met with a kind of bemusement. It was apparent that both the DJ and the audience did not feel each other. Why? We think it is because he was playing a certain type of good music that was not the music of the target group. In short, good music, wrong crowd. So for a period of time, the dance floor was going empty, something that is a rarity at Africa Night. But the resident DJs ensured that the rest of the night went as smooth as ever.
A very big shout out to our ever growing East African contingent! You guys made one DJ blush with joy the way you reacted to his music. It was just nice to see you dance like there was no tomorrow and it was our great pleasure to entertain you. Karibu sana! Need we thank all of those who always come from Belgium and Germany every month too? Yes we do thank you too. And those from Groningen, Arnhem, Amsterdam, Kampen, Almere, Nijmegen, Utrecht, Eindhoven etc. Through you and with you, we are spreading African music to every hook and corner of The Netherlands and beyond.
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